Inspiring art – Edouard Manet

Most people have heard of Monet, but fewer are familiar with Manet – a key figure in the beginnings of the Impressionist movement, which disrupted the Paris art scene in the late nineteenth-century.

I’m particularly fond of this image, which broke all the rules of the time about painting naked women: you were meant to have your nudes artfully and coyly turned away from the viewer, not staring straight out somewhat defiantly. And you were most definitely NOT meant to paint models that the male part of your audience might find uncomfortably familiar! (In this case, a well-known, and apparently popular, courtesan…)